Oral History of Robert Everett - Computer History Museum

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Oral History of Robert Everett Everett: For the whole technical organization. After a couple of years, I became vice-president for Technical Operations, and then a few years later I became executive vice-president, and then president. Hendrie: And then you became responsible for the business? Everett: Yes. I felt pretty responsible before because the technical organization was most of it. As an FFRDC and a non-profit and so on, the emphasis is on the technology and the job you do for the customer. And the finances and things like that in marketing and whatnot are a different matter. Hendrie: And much more modest than in a conventional business. Everett: Yes. I don't know how MITRE would do if it had to compete in an industrial world. I think it would depend on how rapidly we could build the skills that are necessary to live in that world before technical people ran out of work and collapsed. Hendrie: I don't believe, I actually don't know whether they are non-profits but other primarily technical organizations that have tried to foray into the commercial world, such as BB&N [Bolt Beranek & Newman] that have found it very difficult. Everett: Another thing that I think would make it very difficult, if that happened and you sat down and said, well, it isn't that I have a company that hasn’t got all the things that it needs. It's that I own this tremendous technical organization. And MITRE is like a huge multi-billion dollar organization. It's like the engineering arm of this organization. It just doesn't have all the production and the marketing and all that jazz, service. If you're going to make any money, you don't make it out of an engineering organization you make it out of production. So the thing to do would be undoubtedly to combine with somebody that had the production capability in a worldwide service organization and so on. Then provide them with a strong, coherent, know-how-to-work-together technical organization. That would give them a better chance, I'd think. Hendrie: And make some great products. Everett: Yes. Hendrie: Because you make more money repeatedly selling the intellectual…the fruits of your intellectual endeavor rather than just selling it once and going on and doing another thing. Everett: People make a good living by giving advice, but companies don't. Individuals do. Hendrie: There are a couple of other things that I wanted to touch on. I read somewhere that you, in your CHM Ref: X3877.2007 © 2007 Computer History Museum Page 52 of 56
Oral History of Robert Everett your many, many things you did, probably earlier rather than later in your career, you had a couple of patents. I'm just curious, could you just touch on those? Everett: I had a patent on the display system in SAGE which was the only part that might conceivably have been any value was the light gun. I think the light gun was proper for its time, but it's obviously not the time now. So, I never worried about…the people that were fortunate enough to work in the computer business in the early days; everything we touched was new. And if you spent all the time patenting things, I suppose you could have made some money, but I don't know. Jay made some money out of his core patent, and he deserved to. But all the other things, I think he had a couple of other patents, but I don't think they made him much money. I never bothered about patents. Probably should have. Hendrie: Were there any others? Was there one that had something to do with drums or was that not a – I just found some reference somewhere. Everett: I don’t know…I don't know what's patentable. Hendrie: You don't know what you've got patents on. And then is it really a valid patent is always the second question. Everett: The only reason I've got the display patent is that IBM made a deal with MIT that they could patent anything they wanted and give MIT a license and the Air Force a license. I don't know what they – they patented a lot of stuff. I don't know what ever happened to it. Hendrie: When did you start becoming involved in Digital Equipment? I know you have obviously known Ken for… Everett: I've known Ken for a long time. He worked for us at Lincoln, and he left about the same time Jay did and started this company. And I didn't know – I mean – I knew Ken. I'd see him every once in awhile, talk about what he was doing and so on. But I never had anything to do with it until I retired, and then he asked me if I'd serve on the board. And, of course, I said yes. Delighted. So that's what happened. Hendrie: That's how you joined the board. Everett: Yes. Hendrie: I don't know whether you have any comments you would care to share or not. I'd understand if you don't. I'd be perfectly happy to turn off the camera if you wanted to share some not on camera about what happened in the late days of Digital when Ken clearly ran into some trouble at Digital. CHM Ref: X3877.2007 © 2007 Computer History Museum Page 53 of 56
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Oral History of Robert Everett - Computer History Museum

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